Sex Offenders, we can all agree, are fairly vile criminals, they violate one of the most intimate and important parts of human lives, the relationship and trust that is built into sexual intercourse between two people. A new operation put forward by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has had several game companies with online content shut down the accounts of registered sex offenders. Now, while this is all for the good some might say, I'd like to point out that not everyone who is registered as a sex offender is actually guilty of rape or child molestation, and the registry of sex offenders rarely makes a distinction between out right rape, child molestation, or statutory rape.
To give a seriousness of the allegations here, read this article here. In 2009 this case went to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Fourteen year old boy with a trio of girls, 12 and 11. Even I find the concept distasteful, but the fact of the matter is that the boy would be registered, for life, as a sex offender, in his later years this would hamper his ability to get a job, to go to college, and any number of other things because the registry makes no distinction that the act was consensual between minors. Things like this are why simply putting down a blanket "registered sex offenders should be banned from online games because they could use them to prey on minors as online predators.
Now, even ignoring that people who don't deserve to have their basic liberties stripped from them are having them stripped because of what is, let's face it, a glorified error in the paper work, the idea that the government is nannying us in this manner is frankly, disturbing. Yes, the government should take steps to prevent online predators from being able to do what they do, but that should be through non invasive means, not that they should put the onus of this on the game companies, holding them responsible for removing and banning sex offenders. See, by making it the companies' job to ban these people, rather than by policing such elements themselves, they are effectively making the companies responsible for these people.
If the government wants to police these groups, there are far better and more efficient, and far far more ethical methods than simply stripping them of their rights, especially given the sticky and vague definition of "registered sex offender" that can be applied to perfectly innocent teenagers and strip them of large parts of their futures. If the government, federal or state level, wishes to police known sex offenders, then it can simply be utilized via a program they are required to put into their computers that monitors what they're looking and sends back logs of any key words or specific key stroke combinations that pop up on their machines. Flagging them for companies to keep an eye out for, in case they are accused of sexually inappropriate behavior on the company's website, is also a valid move. Simply blocking them off so that they cannot access content is wrong though.
Showing posts with label Game Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game Industry. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
The Decline of Game Sales, but not of Games
Game sales have been steadily dropping over the past few years, or rather, it should be said that retail sales have been dropping. The social game and app markets are as strong, if not stronger, than they were when they first bloomed a little under half a decade ago now, but they are not directed at the hardcore gamer market. The lionshare of game making has always been the AAA title games, the 'God of War's the 'Grand Theft Auto's, the 'Warcraft's and 'Age of Empires' and 'Mario's of the game industry have always been the goal of all game makers. We want to tell stories and make vast sweeping games that give hours of enjoyment, not piddly little things that people play while on the bus or the toilet.
A rather interesting article came out yesterday from Daily Finance. The author gives some ideas on how one might produce results, and all of his ideas have pros and cons, but I think he's missing a fundamental point: The age of retail in video games has come and gone. It is a mockery, a false choice, an idiot's choice. Why would we ever want to pay for a physical object when the product is actually just bits of data that can be given to use over a line of copper and zinc and rubber. The online game market is where sales are happening now, where it is quick and easy and the purchase can be made right from the system you'll play it on, and a record is kept so that if you ever lose the data you can just download it again. You lose a disk? Your disk is lost, you have to buy a new one. Beyond this fact, he makes some very good points.
The game industry does need to lower it's prices, or more specifically, the retailers and publishers need to do so. So much of game sellers seem to forget that there are more poor people than rich people, and poor people are more likely to spend their money on things that will distract them from how hard life is, after all, their lives are usually harder than those of rich people, they need more distractions. I'm not saying drop the prices enormously, but dropping them to 30 or 40 dollars rather than 60 dollars is probably a good idea, you'll get more sales, and more sales means more investor confidence, and that'll help business all round, not to mention that you get yourself out there.
The next issue he brings up is a better kind of controller, and he might be right there, but at the same time putting in a new controller would alienate older players. I personally cannot stand many of the ways some games use touch screens, but there's no reason that they couldn't work. By using a small touch screen device that communicated with the game, one could alter the specifics of the control for the game.
The last point is the most important. Games need to change. They need to change and transform to be better for casual audiences, without losing their hardercore audiences. Games such as Mass Effect 3 with radically different player modes (narrative, rpg, shooter, plus the normal difficulty level system). Similar tactics will be necessary to keep games nice for both casual and hardcore players.
The point is that games are changing, our audience is changing, our methods of sale need to change. The way we think about and use and make games all need to change, but most of all, to change how we sell and distribute game. If we can handle that change, we will bounce back from this small dip in game sales and profits from retail.
A rather interesting article came out yesterday from Daily Finance. The author gives some ideas on how one might produce results, and all of his ideas have pros and cons, but I think he's missing a fundamental point: The age of retail in video games has come and gone. It is a mockery, a false choice, an idiot's choice. Why would we ever want to pay for a physical object when the product is actually just bits of data that can be given to use over a line of copper and zinc and rubber. The online game market is where sales are happening now, where it is quick and easy and the purchase can be made right from the system you'll play it on, and a record is kept so that if you ever lose the data you can just download it again. You lose a disk? Your disk is lost, you have to buy a new one. Beyond this fact, he makes some very good points.
The game industry does need to lower it's prices, or more specifically, the retailers and publishers need to do so. So much of game sellers seem to forget that there are more poor people than rich people, and poor people are more likely to spend their money on things that will distract them from how hard life is, after all, their lives are usually harder than those of rich people, they need more distractions. I'm not saying drop the prices enormously, but dropping them to 30 or 40 dollars rather than 60 dollars is probably a good idea, you'll get more sales, and more sales means more investor confidence, and that'll help business all round, not to mention that you get yourself out there.
The next issue he brings up is a better kind of controller, and he might be right there, but at the same time putting in a new controller would alienate older players. I personally cannot stand many of the ways some games use touch screens, but there's no reason that they couldn't work. By using a small touch screen device that communicated with the game, one could alter the specifics of the control for the game.
The last point is the most important. Games need to change. They need to change and transform to be better for casual audiences, without losing their hardercore audiences. Games such as Mass Effect 3 with radically different player modes (narrative, rpg, shooter, plus the normal difficulty level system). Similar tactics will be necessary to keep games nice for both casual and hardcore players.
The point is that games are changing, our audience is changing, our methods of sale need to change. The way we think about and use and make games all need to change, but most of all, to change how we sell and distribute game. If we can handle that change, we will bounce back from this small dip in game sales and profits from retail.
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